Cuba rebels against the dictatorship: is it really the beginning of the end of Castroism?
It all started around one in the afternoon on Sunday in the town of San Antonio de los Baños, about thirty kilometers from Havana. A large group of people took to the streets shouting anti-government orders: “ Freedom! Down with the dictatorship! We are no longer afraid! ". The images of the protest spread quickly online, despite censorship and service interruptions, in a spontaneous call for civil rebellion against the communist regime which for 62 years has forced a population of 11 million into isolation, misery and to repression. An unusual event, in any case, where fear and resignation traditionally dominate.
The demonstrations then spread like the pieces of a domino over the entire territory of the island: smaller towns around the capital, Alquízar, Güira de Melena, San José de las Lajas, Bauta, but also provincial capitals such as Camagüey, Matanzas, Pinar del Río, Ciego de Ávila and Santiago de Cuba. And then, by the thousands, on the Malecón de Havana, the scene of the last major event that can be remembered, back in 1994. Then it was the restrictions of the " special period ", followed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to provoke an explosion of popular discontent promptly brought back by the security forces and by the intervention of Fidel Castro himself, who descended into the crowd obtaining their acquiescence.
Originating from the desperate health situation in full epidemic of Covid-19 and from the worsening of the food crisis in an economy already terribly tested by six decades of real socialism, today's claims take on a clear political meaning and a worrying – for the regime – anti-totalitarian character: “ Cuba is not yours ”, shouted on Sunday afternoon hundreds of people in front of the headquarters of the Cuban Communist Party (CCP). Difficult for those in charge to continue to argue that the opponents are only mercenaries paid by the CIA, gusanos of imperialism.
If in 1994 it was a combination of personal charisma and threats to appease the revolt, in 2021 the líder máximo takes on the faded appearance of a typical party official co-opted by the Castro dynasty to embody the official face of the dictatorship: the 61-year-old Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez, whose arrival in San Antonio de lo Baños, while the authorities turned off phones and the Internet, only managed to exacerbate the spirits. In a statement unheard of even by the criminal standards of the regime, Díaz-Canel first claimed the monopoly of the square for the " revolutionaries " (a term that in the wooden language of Caribbean Stalinism indicates the loyalists of the one party), and then warned that he was " Willing to do anything " to stop the " mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries " (another must of the official rhetoric), finally inviting " the revolutionaries and communists to face the demonstrators in the streets ". An explicit reference to violence against the civilian population, the practical consequences of which will be measured in the coming days. For the moment, the police have regained control in the night without street lamps in Havana, plagued by weeks of electric blackouts , while raids are taking place in the homes of the demonstrators. Eyewitnesses speak of at least a dozen deaths in the clashes and an unknown number of detainees and disappeared .
" The wave could be seen coming , – wrote dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez on Twitter – you just had to listen carefully to hear the background noise that was growing, and yesterday we took off our muzzle ". Yes, because that cry of “ freedom ” has penetrated loud and clear into the palaces of a power accustomed to disposing at will of the natural and human resources of the island. Díaz-Canel, very nervous in his first speech, spoke again yesterday morning on state television, reversing the sense of the events of the previous day in favor of the regime: " It was a historic day for the Revolution ", the precariousness of the situation " yes it owes to the economic blockade of Yankee imperialism ”(to whom else ?), in a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak , typical of totalitarian political systems with water in their throats, forced to mystify reality to guarantee their survival. Not even a hint of self-criticism, no course corrections.
But until when? This is the question that is constantly circulating not only among Cubans but also in the states of the American continent of which Cuba is a political sponsor , economic client or existential adversary. Given the centrality of the Havana regime in the spread of communist ideology in Latin America, it is not difficult to hypothesize that the repercussions of a collapse of the Castro system would be relevant throughout the region. Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru recently fallen into the hands of Castillo's Izquierdist populism, Argentina itself, albeit in a more nuanced way, Obrador's Mexico, but also the subversive movements that are threatening Chilean and Colombian democracy, would lose a point of reference essential in the self-styled " anti-imperialist struggle ", an expression under which the persistent pseudo-revolutionary campaign against liberal democracy and the rule of law is hidden.
Over the past twenty years, the Cuban economy has sustained itself on oil supplies from Caracas in exchange for training the Venezuelan security apparatus and political support for the Chavista regime. The collapse of the energy sector under Maduro and the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on sending Cuban emigrants' money to the motherland have contributed to the definitive collapse of a structurally dysfunctional economic system. At the same time, the epidemic hit the island head-on just as it timidly reopened to international tourism, highlighting the objective shortcomings of a health system that propaganda has always sold as the flagship of the nation. Cubans today have two vaccines available but no syringes to administer them. The incompetence of Díaz-Canel and the current management did the rest: the monetary reform, aimed at limiting the circulation of the dollar, had the reverse effect of weakening the Cuban peso ; the refusal of humanitarian aid to deal with the health emergency (" enemy propaganda ") has condemned the country to massive contagion; the sugar cane harvest, one of the few national economic resources, is at an all-time low due to " organizational and directive deficiencies ", as the president of the state-owned Azcuba recently denounced. Contemporary history teaches that, normally, it is a short step from hunger to an anti-regime revolt.
In several locations where the protest was taking place, the police refused to intervene to suppress the demonstrations. In its place came the elite units of the Cuban army, also known as black berets ( boinas negras ), which have always been known for their violent actions against the civilian population. In recent months, an artistic movement of a political nature has taken shape, Movimiento San Isidro , made up of artists and intellectuals who have openly denounced the persecution of dissidence. Also in this case the government's response was punitive, through the notorious “ refusal actions ” (citizens in the service of the dictatorship in charge of dispersing the demonstrations) and a series of prison sentences. From the movement was born the song Patria y vida , in opposition to the revolutionary slogan Patria o muerte , which the population adopted as an anti-totalitarian anthem despite the campaign of discredit and boycott by state organs.
For the moment, the protest has no leader and Cuban civil society, exhausted by sixty years of persecution, is today unable to express a clear alternative to the current system of power. The path of emigration is precluded not only by the natural reluctance of the dictatorship to allow expatriation but also by one of the last measures of the Obama administration which, in the context of its misunderstood action of appeasement against the Cuban Communist Party, suspended the so-called the policy of dry feet, wet feet ( pies secos, pies mojados ), according to which all Cubans who entered American territory, legally or not, could access a residence permit and paid work. A relief valve that does not exist today which, paradoxically, unloads all the social pressure on the same regime that had so insistently opposed it over the years. Biden does not want to repeat Obama's mistakes, even for a clear electoral interest in exile Florida, he appeals to the " fundamental and universal rights " of the Cuban people in a belated and somewhat too institutional statement to seem entirely sincere, but for the moment he is careful not to restore the flow of money between the US and Cuba blocked by Trump.
Díaz-Canel has been a halved leader since Sunday, both by the popular protest that is destined to switch off and on again intermittently, and by the possibility that, to save the communist system, the armed forces of the country decide to replace him with a personality who enjoys the their trust in an extremely delicate moment like the present. A Polish-style solution (1981) that avoids the fall of the Havana Wall and, with it, the implosion of one of the last reductions of real socialism on the planet. After decades of whispers at home and public adherence to the directives of power, Cubans have taken action: " We are no longer afraid ". And the infected bubo of Castroism began to deflate.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/cuba-si-ribella-alla-dittatura-e-davvero-linizio-della-fine-del-castrismo/ on Tue, 13 Jul 2021 03:58:00 +0000.